Real Genius (1985) -🤯📼First Time Film Club📼🤯 - First Time Watching/Movie Reaction & Review 

When Matthew said at the beginning "I hate popcorn" I grinned so hard. This is one of the best 80's movies that ever 80'd.

I was working at Coffee Bean in 2008 in Hollywood. Jon Gries walked in and ordered a soy latte. Every employee was freaking out because it was ''Uncle Rico''. He was so sweet. I screamed at my coworkers, ''you know, he was Lazlo to me long before Uncle Rico! And he was the Wolfman who had Nards!''. He laughed hard and then he reenacted multiple Real Genius and Monster Squad scenes. It was a dream come true.

Ah, the 80s. When being a nerd was (somewhat) normalized in movies. My favorite Val Kilmer-ism from this film has to be his response to Hathaway telling him he wanted to see more of him in the lab. "I'll gain weight." Priceless. More people need to react to this movie.

As somebody who writes jokes for a living, my bar has always been “I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said ‘I drank what?’ It is such a perfectly written and delivered deadpan line.

14:13 POPCORN: Matt's face, was for all of us 80s kids who saw this growing up

In the pantheon of most quotable movies of all time, this is in my all-time Top 5. "Do you still run?" "When chased."

True story: In 1985 when I was 10, my buddy's dad took us to see The Goonies at the Lincoln Theater in Belleville, IL, but the film was sold out. So rather than go home, we got tickets for Real Genius instead. It has since been one of my favorite movies of all time, and I still quote it to this day. "I drank what?"

True story: As a shy math nerd, when I went to college I adopted an entire "slacker nerd" persona that was 100% modeled on Val Kilmer in this movie. All my professors had a love/hate relationship with me as a result.

Ever notice Mitch was in Apollo 13? He's in mission control and now that you know, you'll pick him out. He's one of the younger ones. He grew out of the awkward phase lol.

The dude who has a breakdown, screams at everyone, runs away and gets his chair stolen is my favourite gag in the entire movie... and it's not in here... **le sigh**

Imagine that this is the Val's film directly before "Top Gun". Straight from this to Iceman.

Val Kilmer is so funny in Real Genius. He's endlessly charming and his face is so expressive. Also, between Real Genius and Monster Squad, I will forever be a fan of Jon Gries. Every time Lazlo pops up he makes me smile. "Wanna borrow my pajamas?" 🤣🤣🤣

"Tell me, what's Einstein *really* like?" "Dead."

"Cyndi Bopper" takes on a whole new meaning it you've heard her song "She Bop".

Val Kilmer has superb comedic timing. There's this, there's "Top Secret", and later on "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang".

I was a movie theater usher when this came out, and I'd be amused at what I saw on the screen during my walkthrough of the theater. (We still had to enforce the newly enacted law that there was no smoking in theaters anymore.) I decided I needed to sit down and watch it in its entirety instead of watching it piecemeal. So there's young Rob, sitting in an afternoon showing, with the theater maybe at 25% capacity, and Chris says, “I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates when he said... 'I drank what?'” I was the only person to laugh. It's kinda sad, but at the same time, it's kinda neat to recall that ONE time I was the smartest person in the room. 😊

Edit: His face when she suggested popcorn vengeance! : ) LOVE this movie. The comedy is outstanding and it's hard to imagine anyone being as good at being a "former nerd" persona than Val Kilmer. At home in the lab and hitting in beauticians (well, trainees). It wouldn't be surprising if he improv'd much it feels so natural. The soundtrack also hits me in my soul. I would start a cover band just to play updated versions of songs just like these. Kent is the perfect turd andHathaway a great villain.

Caltech's prank war with MIT is the stuff of legend. I spent a summer in Pasadena, and was regaled with one tale in particular from the previous fall. A group of Caltech students traveled across the country and posed as MIT tour guides during an open house for prospective students. They set up a table and gave away free MIT t-shirts, each inside the sort of plastic sleeve factory-made shirts come in. Only when gift recipients got home and opened the plastic did they learn the back of the shirt read "...Because not everyone can go to Caltech." They were still selling the shirts in the Pasadena gift shop when I was there.

Rented out his room? He got off easy. Sophomore year, I flew home for Thanksgiving. Parents picked me up at the airport, then blew past the exit that would take us home. To our old home. They moved while I was at college, and didn't tell me.

I have seen this many, many times and never saw Tom Hanks before. "The film's final sequence was filmed in Canyon Country, CA, where filmmakers constructed a house and filled it with 190,000 pounds of popcorn kernels, according to the 5 Feb 1985 HR. Oversized hot air pumps were used to pop the corn, which literally raised the roof off the house."

Mythbusters tried to replicate the popcorn scene, but couldn't get the house-destroying, window-breaking effect. It was discovered that once popped popcorn completely fills a space, it actually prevents any remaining kernels from popping.

"Is it the dream where you're standing on pyramid in sun-god robes with 1000's of naked women screaming and throwing little pickles at you?" "No." "Why am I the only person who has that dream?"

“I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates when he said, I drank what?” This is up there with The Holy Grail, Sixteen Candles and Revenge of the Nerds as one my most quotable movies. Just pure 80’s gold!

"Sorry, but a girl's got to have her standards..." 🤣🤣 By the way, "Weird Science" is every bit as much fun as this and then some.

So glad you guys are watching this! This was one of my favorite movies to rent as a tween, and it actually had a major impact on my outlook on life. It makes being smart look “cool”, but also suggests that focusing solely on academics causes you to miss out on life. That’s part of how Lazlo ended up in the steam tunnel, and Chris states he used to be just like Mitch until he met Lazlo and saw what his fate could be if he didn’t loosen up, and he’s also determined not to let Mitch suffer the same fate. Ergo: being smart is great, but don’t take life too seriously and remember to have fun. In all these years I had no idea Tom Hanks was in this. But there is another familiar face; the student who exclaims “They’re beauticians??” played Chozen in Karate Kid 2 and later in the Cobra Kai series.

one of my favourite 80's school/college comedy movies. Val Kilmer should really have done more Comedy Movies, because he's been great in every Comedy movie he's been in.

How much you wanna bet that Lazlo could throw a football over them mountains?

Now you just need The Manhattan Project ('86) to complete the unofficial trilogy with Real Genius and Wargames. Fill that sticker book!

Not only is this my favorite 80s movie of all time, but it introduced me to my favorite song of all time in Tears for Fears - Everybody wants to Rule the World.

Jordan Cochran (the Phoebe Cates/Selma Blair lookalike) is portrayed by current teacher Michelle Meyrink, who appeared as Judy in Revenge of the Nerds, Marcia (a friend of Cherry's) in The Outsiders / Suzi Brent in Valley Girl (also featuring Deborah Foreman, who portrayed Susan Decker) prior to Real Genius. Following her last 4 roles after Real Genius, she practiced Zen Buddhism, married John Dumbrille and started her own Vancouver acting school Actorium.

I love this movie. There are so many great lines in it. This and Better Off Dead are my 2 favorite 80s comedies.

“I was reflecting upon the immortal words of Socrates who said, ‘I drank what?’” My absolute most favorite quote ever!

Just Summ Real Genius? ITS A MORAL IMPERATIVE!

Fun Fact: one of the kids in the pool at the party was a young Dean Devlin. he went on to team up with Roland Emmerich for films like Stargate, Independence Day, and Godzilla. Also, Mythbusters actually tested the popcorn thing, sadly they found that even large amounts of it just didn't have enough power to break building structures. This movie is where I first heard the song Everybody Wants to Rule The World. I fell in love with it immediately. still love that and this film to this day. and if I ever won the lottery, i would still go to work, but would show up in bunny slippers.

Out of the nerdy trilogy of Revenge of the Nerds/Weird Science/Real Genius, this is by far my favorite and the one that's aged the best.

That’s Stacy Peralta at the beginning in the space shuttle. Former pro skate boarder, co-founder of Powell Peralta skate boards, and leader of the Bones Brigade. He launched the careers of Tony Hawk, Rodney Mullen, Steve Caballero, Mike McGill, etc.

Mitch makes a cameo in Karate Kid 3, he’s the kid in the club that gets his nose broken by Daniel 😂😂😂

One of my comfort movies. Whenever I hear an 80s-style song with good synth, I always immediately think of this movie. 😂🤷🏾‍♀

I have owned this movie in every format . VHS, DVD , Blu Ray & 4K . Had the pleasure of meeting Deborah Foreman 18 months ago . Glad you got to see this !

Can't wait for this reaction. Classic 80's comedy that's only gotten better over the years.

I saw this movie in 2000 on Cinemax when i was 15. Never heard of it before. Loved it! Called my older brother to tell him about this hidden gem I'd discovered. He said ,'' Yeah. No shit. Everyone loves it. Kilmer at his funniest.''

William Atherton plays the same character in every movie he's in. If you've seen 80's movies, you've seen William Atherton. He did such a good job playing Walter Peck in Ghostbusters that he was harassed on the street, and challenged to fights in bars after.

FINALLY, someone reacted to this! This movie doesn't get ANY love, and it's hilarious!

Watching this movie today reminds us about how tragic Val Kilmer's current medical condition is where he can't hardly talk anymore due to having throat cancer. The best scene of Top.Gun: Maverick was when Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer's characters meet and Val struggles to say to say a couple of lines.

I was the same college age of these guys in 85 when this came out, yeah it was accurate. The pranks are also fairly accurate to intense college pranks of the time period. In example: the police car that was placed on top of a building on the Harvard Campus, the flash card incident at the rose bowl and others.

My favorite scene was always the description of the dream with the throwing tiny little pickles at me and "why is it only me who has that dream?"

I imagine the dog hung around not only because it pissed off Hathaway but because the workers probably gave it love when they did the work

I think Ryan Reynolds based his whole persona off of Vals performance

Her husband straight up pulled a Deadpool in that look at the camera when she mentioned the popcorn. I greatly enjoyed that.

“ I had a dream last night…” “OH! Was it the one where you’re standing on top of a great pyramid in long flowing, godlike robes and thousands of naked women are screaming, worshiping and serving little pickles at you?” “Uh…no?” “Strange, why am I the only one that has that dream?” That was my go to quote for years any time anyone said anything about “having a dream“. I don’t think anyone got the joke. Also, WILLIAM ATHERTON! being his snarky best for a whole movie! A movie that’s not Ghostbusters or Die Hard!

Yes! Finally someone reacts to this wonderful movie. As a nerd in high school in the early to mid '80s this movie always felt like it was made for me. Such a fun movie, such great dialogue, so many fun characters. And Michelle Meyrink was a nerd goddess back then. Another great nerdy movie I'd love to see you watch is Young Einstein. It's one of my favorites, but it's very odd. I think you'll either really dig it or be mystified why anyone would watch it. Another fun college movie you might check out is PCU with Jeremy Piven.

The laser-popcorn thing was famously tested on Mythbusters.

Cal arts is within 10 blocks of my house. So is Pixar. My kids used to eat lunch at cal arts, as they had an awesome cafeteria, and would allow Oakland tech and far west academy students with off campus privileges to lunch there. They eventually closed the campus to highschool students after a few fights broke out on their grounds...

William Atherton was also in the movie Biodome, with Pauli Shore. I recommend that one for you, Emily! You'll like that one, I think.

This is one of those movies that I love SO MUCH I only allow myself to watch it every few years! This plus Top Secret gave me a lifelong crush on Val Kilmer. Fat, skinny, young, old, don't care--love me some Val Kilmer. I was lucky enough to marry a guy who (still) looks like a cross between Jim Morrison and Val Kilmer--thanks to another Val Kilmer movie, y'all get to see exactly what that looks like, too! Since I watched him for the first time on a crappy VHS tape, with crappy VHS resolution, after seeing him for the first time and reading the post-movie credits to find out who he was, I thought his name was Yal Kulmer. I remember proudly telling my female friends at school, who were debating whether Don Johnson or Tom Selleck or Kirk Cameron was cuter, that Yal Kulmer was way cuter than any of them.

They sure knew how to make movies back in the 80s. I mean just something as simply having that dog come back at the right moment at the end of movie was filmmaking "genius".

24:51 Trauma. Even 80's movie villains came complete with childhood trauma. 🤣

Parts of the movie are based on real incidents from CalTech (the car prank, for example) - MIT's infamous baby brother in California. The opening credits are a montage of famous inventions that were used for less than pleasant things by the military-industrial complex (thus the song in the credits, "You took advantage of me"). It's basically a love letter to silly nerds. Also, Not-Phoebe Cates' character is a very good (and kind) depiction of someone with ADHD and some form of autism - the portrayal is very much intentional. Also, screaming student? Dean Devlin. As in Independence Day, etc.

Michelle Meyrink - she’s in the Outsiders and Valley Girl, with Deborah Foreman, the cute blond. Both are must see classics. The guy in the closet is Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite!

I aint gonna lie, when I was a teen I basically modeled my personality based on Chris Knight.

This film, and "Manhattan Project" are two of my favorites from this genre in the 80s.

The Bar scene was filmed in "Barney's Beanery" Well known for it's incredibly huge beer menu as well as the "World's Second Best Chili". Loved to go there when I lived out there in the early 90's. Was there on a date and she nearly freaked out when 3 of the Members of Metallica sat behind our booth. I told her yeah, and? the place was always being frequented by some good band or other. Like I said. They had the worlds second best chili.

This is the real superbowl

14:18 - the look he gave the camera...

Karate Kid connections: Gabe Jarrett who plays Mitch was in a cameo in Karate Kid 3 and Yuji Okumoto who plays Fenton also plays Chozen in Karate Kid 2. Writer/director/producer Dean Devlin (Universal Soldier, Stargate, Independence Day) is in the movie as Milton and Skateboarder Stacy Peralta plays the Astronaut at the beginning of the movie.

That's crazy. I've seen this movie probably a dozen times but this was the first time I noticed Tom Hanks right when she did.

Probably my favorits of the 80s "teen comedies". It was also the year before I went to college, so it gave me a bit of a distorted view of what college might be like.

Despite the change of house, the street and landscape features remain the same, although now much more developed. To accomplish the feat of making a house get pulled apart by popcorn, the filmmakers had their work cut out for them and it was no easy task. They first had to find a suitable location where a specially-rigged house with hydraulics could be built. The location was in a suburb just north of Los Angeles in Canyon Country which, at that time in the 80’s, was a subdivision under new construction with several open places they could choose to build. Building the house was the easy part, destroying it with popcorn was where the true challenge came into play. The filmmakers required almost 200 tons of popcorn in order to adequately fill the house and simulate the structure-busting effect. Getting that amount of popcorn was beset with problems and according to actor Gabe Jarret, the first company hired out to pop the popcorn burned down due to overuse of the popping machines. Later batches of the popcorn were treated with fire retardant to avoid combustion and had to be covered on set so that birds seeking a snack wouldn’t be poisoned. The laser as it hits the house and eventually fills it with popcorn in a jiffy. In an interview with director, Martha Coolidge, she went on to explain the difficulties they encountered. “… our Special FX guy became an expert on popcorn (which, by the way, weighs 2 pounds per cubic foot). In order to build the exploding house, he had to design all kinds of hydraulic systems to move the popcorn inside. To get that much popcorn, we had to make half of it as we couldn’t buy that much popcorn from commercial companies in that short a period of time. We popped 40 tons ourselves on the lot for 6 weeks with huge poppers outside so the whole lot smelled like popcorn. We bought another 100 tons with a six week advanced order. When we shot on location, we stored the popcorn in 38 40-foot tractor-trailer trucks parked up the road. It took more than a day to clean up the site to do take two, so we had to go shoot other scenes in between. It was also amazing to watch. I’ll never forget tons of popcorn gushing out of that house.” From: beyondthemarquee.com/37493

I was in my early teens when this movie came out and loved it. A lot of great movies came out around that time. I had a crush on Jordan when I first saw this movie.

This, War Games & "The Manhattan Project" with John Lithgow are all parts of what I consider the too-precocious kids endanger the world trilogy. Have you guys watched The Manhattan Project yet? It may not quite be on the level of War Games or Real Genius, but it a similar theme and still a lot of fun. Thanks for watching this. It holds up better than MANY 1970s/80s "teen comedies"

I didn’t recognize him at first but the long haired guy was also Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite 😂

It’s movies like this that really make me miss the 80’s..

I watched this obsessively in the 80s, it was one of the best comedies of the decade. And the soundtrack was stellar.

Tom Hanks at 4:50

Tom hanks was just the beginning, during the tanning international event, as the professor is walking down the stairs, there is a young black teenager standing to the right of the aisle. That teen is Dean Devlin who will one day become, director of Independence Day, Stargate and Godzilla. The movie is based on the teen years of its writer, such as the tape recorders in lectures he experienced in college in New York growing up.

Very few movies make me miss growing up in the 1980s like this one. Iconic (I wound up going to college and studying high power lasers too!) Thanks for reacting, I figured you'd love it. Absolutely slapping soundtrack, too.

"get yourself a jet from pepsi baby" made me cackle, I love Emily's reactions

That look from Matt when she mentioned popcorn, that was great.

They actually tried this experiment on an episode of Mythbusters. They found that it is possible to pop popcorn with a laser beam, but they couldn't get it to produce enough pressure to break through a house.

20:15 - "...just repeat to yourself 'It's just a show, I should really just relax'..."

right before this film- the guy who plays Kent was in a Tom Hanks film- 'Bachelor Party'- maybe they're friends and he was hanging out on set and did a cameo.

This came out in the summer of Science movies, This one, My Science Project and Weird Science, for many years Weird Science was my fave but in long run this one is. I have seen this film so many times..it is one of my comfort films.Should have talked about Lazlo (Jon Gries) so many great 80's parts, , Monster Squad, Running Scared,Fright Night 2 and then of course Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite.

Finally somebody reacted to this movie! I love it.

I can't even tell you how many times I've seen this movie since it first turned up on cable in the 80s and I never noticed that Tom Hanks appearance!

I saw this when I was about 8 years old. When I was in school, they had the whole "What do you want to be when you grow up?" My answer: Val Kilmer

LOL - No guys, that (4:57) was NOT Tom Hanks. 😂

They used the entire output of an L.A. popcorn factory to fill the house, they did not expect the house to break.

Glad you finally got around to this! One of my all-time favorite movies when I was a little kid - it was on cable all the time :) Val Kilmer is fantastic as usual. I loved the whole laser setup thing, and how can you not love that popcorn ending!

ABSOLUTELY ONE OF THE BEST MOVIES FROM THE 80's. So many great jokes and one-liners - Thanks for the review.

Yes! So few reactors do this movie!

Giving this video a thumbs-up just for "laser beans" alone

This is one of my favorite movies growing up and still now to this day. My wifey bought it on Amazon prime video just for me to watch it anytime anywhere. And this is one of the movies that is best not remade

The woman playing Mitch’s mom was in Spiderman 2(2004). She was the one that asked about the AI powering Doc Ock’s arms.

Don’t know if anyone else has pointed this out but the guy that has the freak out while studying was screenwriter, Dean Devlin of Stargate and Independence Day fame.

You have to do The Manhattan Project (1986) and finish off three of the best teen-tech Cold War films of all time!

Lazlo also being Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite made my brain explode popcorn!!! 🤣🤣

I hate the smell of popcorn too. I worked in a hospital in my 20s, and the nurses always put those microwave bags in and walked away to do work so the popcorn would burn. Since then, when I smell popcorn, I smell burnt popcorn. I hate coffee smells too since they brewed coffee all day long. 35 years later and the smells still bother me.

14:05 - My answer this question, "Maybe with a running start."

The look to the camera.... Popcorn

#recommendation I recommend the movie *Night of The Comet* from 1984. Only one or two people have reacted to it that I know of. It's stupid fun and off the wall horror/comedy.